It has been a common impression that Field was attracted to the old-book corner of McClurg’s store by the old and rare books displayed there.  These were not for him, as he had not then learned that bibliomania could be made to put money in his purse or to wing his shafts of irony with feathers from its favorite nest.  He went to browse among the dark green covers of Bohn and remained years after to prey upon the dry husks of the bibliomaniacs.

Among the cherished relics of those days there lies before me as I write “The Book of British Ballads,” edited by S.C.  Hall, inscribed on the title page: 

  “Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.”

To Slason Thompson from Eugene Field.  Christmas, 1885.

This volume Field had picked up in some secondhand book-store for a quarter or a dime.  He had erased the pencilled name of the original owner on the fly-leaf and had written mine and the date over it in ink.  Then turning to the inside of the back cover he had rubbed out the price mark and ostentatiously scrawled “$2.50.”  This “doctoring” of price marks was a favorite practice of Field’s, perfectly understood among his friends as a token of affectionate humor and never dreamed of as an attempt at deception.  By such means he added zest to the exchange of those mementoes of friendship, which were never forgotten as Christmas-tide rolled round, to the end of the chapter.  The day has indeed come when it is “a pleasure to remember these things.”

The Latin motto on this particular copy of ballads reminds me, among other pleasant memories, that during the year 1885 there came into Field’s life and mine an intimate friendship that was to exercise a more potent influence on Field’s literary bent than anything in his experience.  I have before me the following description of “The Frocked Host of Watergrasshill”: 

Prout had seen much of mankind, and, in his deportment through life, showed that he was well versed in all those varied arts of easy, but still gradual, acquirement which singularly embellished the intercourse of society:  these were the results of his excellent continental education—­

  [Greek] Pollon d’ anthropn idon astea, kai noon egno.

But at the head of his own festive board he particularly shone; for, though in ministerial functions he was exemplary and admirable, ever meek and unaffected at the altar of his rustic chapel, where

  “His looks adorned the venerable place,”

still, surrounded by a few choice friends, the calibre of whose genius was in unison with his own, with a bottle of his choice old claret before him, he was truly a paragon.